Harvest, by Tess Gerritsen

The psychologically disturbing horrors of the evil-doers in this medical thriller made my spine tingle. Even though I found it hard to believe some of the sticky situations these characters found themselves in, I found myself believing that such corruption, immorality, and greed might indeed be possible in the medical community and I now possess a new suspicion of doctors and hospital systems.

Gerritsen’s adrenaline-charged thrillers followed her earlier career in romantic suspense, but her focus on the medical settings in these crime thrillers is what got my attention. That, and the constantly moving plot of this intricately layered story about a very promising medical resident-cum-amateur detective, Dr. Abby DiMatteo, who finds herself uncovering clues to the disturbing possibility that extremely wealthy heart transplant recipients may be jumping to the head of the non-discriminating transplant list while other patients with a legitimate place lose their lives. Even more disturbing is the possible source of the ”donated” organs. From the very first chapter, fascinating characters are introduced in separate plotlines such that the reader suspects but doesn’t know for sure how each of the characters will be connected later on. This was a great stand-alone read with a very satisfying ending. It’s not the entry into a series and it’s one of her early thrillers, but I didn’t find anything about it out of place in time. A romantic plot is threaded into the story as well.

The knowledge that the author was a real-life doctor before she turned to full-time writing gives me confidence in her ability to accurately portray medical students, residents, and practicing physicians. Lovers of suspense and mystery will love Harvest, and the themes are so disturbingly chilling that even horror fans might enjoy Tess Gerritsen, who also incorporates the supernatural into some of her novels.

Look for Harvest in the WRL catalog.

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Postmortem, by Patricia Cornwell

Postmortem is Patricia Cornwell’s first medical thriller featuring Dr. Kay Scarpetta and homicide detective Pete Marino, set in Richmond, Virginia. I tried to keep my reading confined to the audiobook in my car, but I found myself taking it to bed with me every night and not falling asleep until I’d listened through at least two CDs per night. I hadn’t read a “coroner” story or watched very many TV shows (no more than a few CSI episodes) on this topic of forensic pathology since one of my old favorites, Quincy, M.E., starring Jack Klugman, in the late 70s to early 80s, so I’m delighted to rekindle my odd fascination with the gory details of autopsies and forensic investigation. I don’t feel bad about this considering that Cornwell’s tales seem to have taken up permanent residence on the bestseller lists. I’m pretty stoked that I’ll now be able to read or listen to more than 20 books in the Kay Scarpetta series, and I’ve also now discovered a number of other writers of suspense-filled medical thrillers to add to my reading list.

Scarpetta is a strong, female leading character (Quince was quite the chauvinist, as I recall). In this first novel, she’s obviously up against male characters who think she does not belong in her position as Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia. She also has to gain the confidence and respect of her sidekick, detective Pete Marino, who reappears throughout the series. The pairing of a medical expert with a legal or police professional seems to be a very effective device in this style of literature, one that has proven successful in a number of series and TV shows. I really enjoyed the character development in Postmortem. Pete and Kay don’t get along well at first, but over time they recognize each other’s unique talents and slowly develop an awkward rapport tinged with sarcasm and a bit of humor that promises to develop further into the series. The ending was unpredictable and the inevitable dangerous situation the characters get themselves into could not have been resolved without their loyalty to each other and teamwork.

The medically fascinating details in these books showcase some of the latest technological advancements in forensic pathology through the years. Some might find it odd to deal with Cornwell’s older books and the now-obsolete computer technologies and medical practices, but others may enjoy it, sort of like opening a time capsule. Her latest novels continue to incorporate modern techniques and equipment being used in the real world of medicine, virtual autopsies for example.

This review is not for those who are already loyal fans of Patricia Cornwell. It’s to alert readers newly interested in fast-paced medical thrillers that we have her series of books in the library just waiting for your discovery! Check the WRL catalog for Postmortem, in print or in audiobook on CD.

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Midnight in Peking, by Paul French

Another true crime review written by Bud:

On the morning of January 8, 1937, the corpse of a young woman named Pamela Werner was found lying in a ditch beneath the supposedly haunted Fox Tower on the outskirts of Peking, China. Brutally murdered and savagely mutilated, the girl was only identifiable by her diamond-studded platinum wrist watch and the singular grey color of the iris in one of her slashed eyes.  The story of this murder and its ensuing police investigation are related in the terrific true-crime thriller, Midnight in Peking by Paul French.

Peking in the 1930s was a fascinating mixture of clashing cultures. The British lived quite comfortably inside a large walled section of the city known as the Legation Quarter. Outside of this area resided the Chinese nationals and a combustible mix of expats of all nationalities. Overshadowing everything was the impending threat of the Japanese Army, which had invaded China and was slowly making its way towards the city.

Amidst this turmoil the death of one girl seemed of little importance. But Pamela was the daughter of a former British consul, and had apparently been killed in Chinese territory, which could potentially make the case a political hot potato. To diplomatically resolve the problem, two detectives, one Chinese, Col. Han Shih-ching, and one British, a former Scotland Yard officer named Richard Dennis, were assigned to work the murder together.

Their queries took them from the debauched soirees of the insular Brits to the depraved dives of the lowest Chinese slums, but current events, hidden agendas and meddling superiors stymied the investigation and prevented them from bringing the case to a satisfactory resolution. Furious at this turn of events, Pamela’s grieving father took up the case and relentlessly pursued it. He hounded officials at home and abroad and drove himself into poverty trying to identify her killer and bring him to justice. The details of what he was eventually able to uncover about his daughter’s murder are heinous and heartbreaking.

Midnight in Peking is both an intriguing mystery and a colorful evocation of a famous city at a pivotal point in time. The author, Paul French, lives in Shanghai and is an expert in Chinese culture. This fast-paced, engrossing tale is recommended for true crime buffs and people with an interest in pre-war China.

Check the WRL catalog for Midnight in Peking

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Micro, by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston

From watching Jurassic Park it seems plausible that Michael Crichton thought, “Hey, what if dinosaurs and people had been around at the same time? People are so helpless. We are small, with no claws and teensy teeth.  We’d just get eaten!”  Which made an exciting (albeit gory) story.  I am guessing that the idea for Micro started in a similar way.  Michael Crichton thought, “What if people were as small as insects? We’re just soft and squishy.  No exoskeleton and only two legs.  We’d just get eaten!”

And sadly for the characters, that is exactly what happens in Micro.  Not for the faint hearted or the weak stomached, Micro is extremely violent and extremely gross. Have you ever seen a nature documentary where the parasitic wasps lay their eggs in the caterpillars, then the larvae hatch and eat the caterpillar from the inside out?  Yuk!  You can’t get much grosser than that.  But imagine the victim isn’t a caterpillar, but a person?  My stomach is uneasy just typing this.  But it doesn’t stop there, the many other nasty ways that insects have of killing and eating each other are explored in exciting, but grisly, detail in Micro.

Michael Crichton died in 2008 before Micro was finished.  To complete the book they selected Richard Preston, whose best books are non-fiction books about diseases and science, try The Hot Zone or Wild Trees.  I think this was an inspired combination.  The book has Michael Crichton’s thrilling pace and Richard Preston’s eye for plausible biological detail.

Micro was an exciting, escapist read that I consumed in one weekend.  Perhaps it is not great literature, and it didn’t receive very good reviews, but when you add an evil corporation, a mad scientist, an exotic tropical location, and a budding love affair, it kept me reading.

Check the WRL catalog for Micro.

 

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The Informationist, by Taylor Stevens

Childhood is different for everyone: some are idyllic and others are filled with heartache.  If you’re lucky, you grow up in a house with loving parents, siblings, and extended family.  There will be good friends, plenty to eat, a roof over your head, a solid education, and entertaining family vacations.

But what if your childhood was spent moving between countries and continents? Your scholastic education ended at 12 years old? To put food on the table, you had to beg on the streets? Chores involved supporting hundreds of people? What if your family was labeled a cult? What if a child who grew up in a cult broke free and started writing stories? Author Taylor Stevens did grow up this way, and she used her childhood experiences to create Vanessa Michael Munroe, the informationist.

Michael (as she’s known to her clients) is in the business of information.  Hired by corporations, governments, and those individuals who can afford her services, Michael gathers intelligence for them by inhabiting foreign countries and infiltrating all echelons of society.  In The Informationist, Michael is hired to find out how and where a Texas billionaire’s daughter went missing in Africa.  She’ll have no choice but to use all of her expertise and knowledge of modern Africa–and to confront her own personal demons–in order to reach her goal.

Stevens has created a fascinating character who speaks 22+ languages, can blend in anywhere by manipulating her androgynous features, and has an intelligence and ability to read people that makes her a force to be reckoned with.  Michael’s fierce instinct for self-preservation, unpredictable fatalistic tendency, and frightening efficiency blended with vulnerability make her an irresistible protagonist.  You’ll love this book if you enjoy the action, pacing, and intelligence found in the Bourne Legacy movies or if you find the victim/survivor nature of Lisbeth Salander’s character from the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy utterly compelling.  Not to mention, you’ll never look at the landscape and culture of Africa quite the same way again.

Check the WRL catalog for The Informationist

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The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

This week’s posts are from WRL Development Officer, Benjamin Goldberg.

I finally got around to The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.  The book has been praised by many and now I can see why.  It’s an excellent story.  Knowing I would never find the time to read it, I decided to listen to the audio version.  This turned out to be a great choice.  Paul Michael reads exceptionally well, giving added life to each character by expertly using different voices for each one.  This also allows the listener to recognize when characters are speaking, so I could literally hear the voices as I made my way through the book.

Since this is a mystery, I don’t want to give too much away.  The hero is Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who finds himself unwittingly pulled into an ancient mystery that he is uniquely qualified to solve.  His knowledge of Holy Grail lore, Catholic Church history, and most importantly, the use of symbols in art, religion, and a secret society named The Priory of Sion, make him key to solving the puzzles laid before him by museum curator Jacques Saunière.  Joined in the hunt by cryptologist Sophie Neveu and Grail expert Sir Leigh Teabing, the trio trail blaze through France and Great Britain seeking answers.  Their quest is made all the more compelling because they are being pursued not only by the French police (Langdon is accused of murder), but also by a fanatical Opus Dei monk named Silas.  Further, Silas’ actions are directed by “the Teacher,” a character who stays in the shadows for most of the story.

Brown writes excellent descriptions, delightful dialogue, and maintains an attention to detail that is critical to keeping the plot on track.  He moves the plot along at a lightening fast pace.  It is easy to miss that the main action occurs in fewer than 36 hours.  Robert Langdon is believable as an Indiana Jones style character, albeit more academic and less adventuresome.  Like a ballerina whose every move has purpose, each of the supporting characters are included to expand the story in ways that are both ingenious and entertaining.

After reading or listening to The Da Vinci Code, you may wish to check out the library’s copy of Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind the Da Vinci Code edited by Dan Burstein.  It can help you sort out which parts of the book are research-based, which are entirely fabricated and which fall somewhere in between.  Brown took great care to blur the lines between “truth” and fiction, which again adds to the readers’ experience.  The Da Vinci Code is a tightly knit mystery that includes plenty of action, a little romance, and a surplus of puzzles within puzzles.

Check the WRL catalog for The Da Vinci Code

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Scorch City, by Toby Ball

Toby Ball is an author with a talent for finding today’s hot button issues in settings of the past. He writes a unique brand of thriller/mystery, set in an unnamed city in historical periods that closely mirror those of the United States, but that use original characters and an atmosphere that remains deliberately hazy, hallucinatory, and unsettling.

His first book, The Vaults, was set in the 30s, in a time when corrupt politicians, cops, and businessmen were altering both past and present by tampering with archives. His second book, Scorch City, takes place in the same city, and features a couple of common characters, but doesn’t require knowledge of the first to enjoy. This time the action takes place just after a big war, presumably WWII.

As Scorch City opens, the residents of a negro shantytown are caught in a dilemma. The body of an emaciated, diseased woman has turned up on the bank of the river next to their community. Someone from their community might be responsible for her death, but the body also could have been planted by racists or the rabidly anti-communist cops or politicians who are whipping up their own popularity by going after the shantytown. They don’t want to cover up an investigation, but they do make a request of journalist Frank Frings and detective Piet Westermann:  help them just a little by moving the body downriver before “discovering” it.

Thus begins a complicated investigation where the need to know the truth about a potential murder or epidemic is tempered by the need for sensitivity in a situation where a black community with a tenuous hold is endangered and the whole city could be consumed in the resulting conflagration.

Ball is a master at creating noble characters with conflicting loyalties. He slides gracefully between three viewpoints. Frings is a journalist whose dedication to objectivity is wavering and whose position is threatened by less ethical writers who don’t mind being the tools of corrupt politicians. Westermann is a good cop who wants to do the right thing, but he has a history of cowardice under pressure and some moral problems. He’s constantly under threat from colleagues who may be loyal to the department, but may be in the pocket of fascists. The third point-of-view character, a slide guitar player, remains more mysterious, but part of the fun of the book is figuring out the depth of his involvement.

All of this takes place against a background of impending violence and the strange influence of two religious sects with charismatic leaders: Christian snake handlers with a mysterious agenda on one side and practitioners of some kind of voudou on the other. When a second woman in similar condition turns up and others are discovered to be missing, the mystery deepens.

If you like crime or historical novels, but are looking for something a little different, you could not do better than Toby Ball . His books are suspenseful, a little trippy, deeply atmospheric, and relevant to contemporary political concerns.

Check the WRL catalog for Scorch City.

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Before I Go to Sleep, by S. J. Watson

Christine wakes one morning to find herself sleeping next to a stranger. She does not remember how she wound up in bed with this older man– she must have been very drunk– and she is dismayed to see that he wears a wedding ring. When she finds her way to the bathroom, the woman in the mirror is at least twenty years too old.

It takes a while for Christine to come to grips with the truth. She is no longer a college student but a middle-aged woman. The man in the bed is Ben, her husband. Decades ago, while she was in her late twenties, Christine suffered a head injury that left her with an exceedingly rare form of amnesia. Every night her mind resets. She can make new memories but cannot retain them the next day. Ben patiently explains all of this– but of course he must explain it again the next morning, and the next, and the next.

And that would be that– a strange but directionless story, Groundhog Day meets Memento replayed in an endless loop– but for the phone call Christine receives. The caller claims to be her doctor. (Is he telling the truth? Christine cannot ask Ben, who has left for work.) Dr. Nash suggests that Christine look in the bottom of her bedroom closet. Though she is uneasy, Christine follows the doctor’s cryptic advice and finds a hidden journal. Its pages are filled with her own handwriting, and she has left a message for herself to find: “Don’t trust Ben.”

The atmosphere is tense throughout S. J. Watson’s debut. We learn early on that something isn’t right, that the pieces just don’t add up, but we are helplessly bound by Christine’s own limitations. As with the protagonist of Turn of Mind (another 2011 debut, reviewed here yesterday), mental disease has rendered our narrator unreliable, and the other characters do not seem to be entirely trustworthy, either. Someone is lying, but every step closer to the truth puts Christine in more danger– and even when we as readers figure out the mystery, there’s not a thing we can do but watch our heroine greet each new day with a blank slate, innocent of whatever perils she may have unearthed the day before. It is an absolutely nerve-wracking plot device that makes this an unusually strong thriller.

Check the WRL catalog for Before I Go to Sleep

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Turn of Mind, by Alice LaPlante

Amanda O’Toole is dead. The attacker bashed in her head and surgically removed four of her fingers. Shortly before she was murdered, Amanda had fought with her neighbor, Dr. Jennifer White, a retired orthopedic surgeon. Jennifer is probably guilty as sin, but the police don’t have the proof they need, and the suspect refuses to confess.

Jennifer is not being uncooperative on purpose. She can’t confess because she can’t remember if she committed the crime or not. Most days she can’t remember that her friend Amanda has even died in the first place. Jennifer is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Jennifer is the very definition of the unreliable narrator. Her fractured version of reality offers only meager clues about the events surrounding Amanda’s death. We must instead rely on Jennifer’s son, daughter, and caretaker, but they are hiding their own secrets, and they are in no hurry to aid the police in the murder investigation.

Alice LaPlante’s debut is a very strange thriller. The crime is committed before the story opens, and no one is worried about the murderer striking again, yet the atmosphere crackles with nervous tension. The book is a page-turner, but each turn of the page accelerates Jennifer’s unraveling, making it less and less likely that we’ll ever learn what really happened. But even though LaPlante rejects most of the conventions of the thriller genre, she still writes a harrowing story. It is scary, not for the crime, but for the horrible, painfully realistic treatment of Alzheimer’s.

Check the WRL catalog for Turn of Mind

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The Wreckage, by Michael Robotham

It takes a special kind of writer to see a connection between two disparate events and create a bright line that links the two. In his newest book, Michael Robotham does just that by connecting the global financial crisis with the anarchy in Iraq.  (Please, please, please let it be fiction!)

First, a word about two of the main characters. One of the leads is Vincent Ruiz, a retired London Detective Inspector who is a main character in five of Robotham’s previous books, along with psychologist Joe O’Loughlin, who has a supporting role in The Wreckage. It’s important for readers to know that reading the earlier books isn’t necessary to understand and enjoy The Wreckage, because Robotham easily introduces both characters and fleshes them out without overly referencing the previous books.  The downside is that they are such well-written characters that you’ll want to go back to the start (Suspect) for more.

Ruiz’s story is but one thread in the novel, and readers can be pardoned for thinking that Robotham takes up too many threads in the early going. By the middle of the story the strands start coming together and it is readily apparent that he is weaving a complex tapestry that defies a simplistic approach. The other storylines include a traumatized young woman who runs a con game with her boyfriend; a woman searching for her missing husband; and a freelance journalist working in occupied Iraq.  To say any more would be to not just give away the story, but to spoil the pleasure of watching Robotham create.

It’s not uncommon for reviewers to call fiction about current events “an intelligent thriller.”  Sometimes that makes readers feel better about their pleasure reading (remember The First Law of Reading – “never apologize for your reading taste“).  Sometimes it fulfills the contractual obligations of the publisher’s other authors.   In the case of The Wreckage, it is dead on.  If you want to read one of the most intelligent thrillers of the last couple of years, here’s your book.

Check the WRL catalog for The Wreckage

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The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes, by Marcus Sakey

The man who thinks of himself as Daniel Hayes isn’t sure of  his real name.  All he has to go by is the insurance card he finds in a BMW he discovers after crawling onto a rocky beach.  Some clothes in the trunk fit him, the cash in an envelope fits him (plus it’s the right color), and he knows all about the gun in the glove compartment.  Based on the trash in the car and the California license plate, he figures whoever left it there (himself?) had driven a long way.

Adopting that persona, “Daniel Hayes” tries to reconstruct a possible life. Was he a carpenter? A butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker?  Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy?  One faint clue comes from a television rerun and the connection he feels to one of its characters.  But before he has time dig deeper, he’s on the run from the cops and heading to the West Coast.

At the same time, a woman in Los Angeles is interrupted in her shower by a coolly vicious character asking for Daniel Hayes.  A young woman is staking out Hayes’ house, watching for a chance to break in and search the place.  And an LA Sheriff’s detective is searching for Daniel Hayes to question him in the disappearance of his famous wife.  When–if– the cross-country traveler shows up, he’s going to be a very popular man, but he won’t have a clue why.

As “Daniel Hayes” begins to unravel the truth behind his memory loss, he is tormented by dreams that convict him of some horrible crime, but in the unsettling way of dreams, they provide him no explanations.  He also learns that the man he believes himself to be is not the man others know him to be.  Sakey uses that gap to explore the concept of identity, but always within the context of a story of increasing complexity and tension.

I had first read Sakey’s The Amateurs, a fun book in its own right, and really liked the character Bennett.  Perhaps not “liked,” but “knew I’d remember as a bad guy capable of anything.”  Bennett makes a follow-up appearance in this story, right back in the role he had in the earlier book– as Sakey describes him, the man who knows people sin, and who makes it his business to be there when they do.  The leverage he holds, and his chilling readiness to use it, gives him any number of frightened but useful tools wherever he goes.

The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes is a perfect summertime read– fast and nimble, but with enough insight into people and places to give it a noir sensibility.  It’s the kind of writing that makes it more memorable than the usual mass-produced suspects on the bestseller list, and one you’d really like to recommend to discerning thriller readers.  It is unfortunate that Sakey and his friends Brett Battles and Gregg Hurwitz (whom he acknowledges in the book) are better writers than the brand-name guys.  With their talents, all three should be sitting on top of those lists.

Search the WRL catalog for The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes

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Fun and Games, by Duane Swierczynski

If you want someone out of the way, preferably permanently, and you don’t want any fingers pointed towards you, why not solve both problems with an arranged accident?  It’s got to be plausible, it’s got to be visible (no conspiracy theories here, thank you very much), and it’s got to do as little damage as possible to innocent bystanders.  Enter Them.

Lane Madden, an actress with a string of action movies and a stint in rehab under her belt, comes up against Them as she’s driving on the lonely twisting roads above Los Angeles.  Evading Their initial attempts, she manages to escape and lose herself in the brush and houses around Hollywood.  But why are They after her?

Enter Charlie Hardie.  Alcoholic housesitter with a vague background in police work, Charlie takes commissions to care for and watch over the homes of the wealthy and connected, although he limits his duties to inspecting the house, then laying on the client’s sofa watching old movies and drinking himself into a nightly stupor.

Lane and Charlie collide at his newest assignment.  She refuses to believe he isn’t one of Them, and he refuses to believe in Them.  Until They show up and try to kill both Charlie and Lane, at which point Lane and Charlie must join forces to improvise an escape.  Their evasion takes them from Hollywood hot spots to LA dumps, all the while staying one step ahead of Them.  As they flee, Lane and Charlie’s stories become increasingly relevant to their partnership, and we learn more about how and why They came into being.

Swierczynski alternates Lane and Charlie’s scenes with narratives from The Accident People (as we learn to call Them).  Frighteningly well-equipped with deadly trinkets, armed with information stolen from secret databases, and skilled at having the right people on the right scene, They constantly adapt and create new opportunities to kill their targets.  That he’s able to shift between those viewpoints and still build up the tension is a real testament to Swierczynski’s storytelling skills.  Even better is the way he’s able to wrap up the narrative in Fun & Games while setting up a story arc that is supposed to play out over two more books.  Here’s hoping they’re delivered with as much speed and bang as this one.

Check the WRL catalog for Fun & Games

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The Book of the Dead, by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston

I do not normally read thriller/suspense titles, but in a spirit of adventure, I picked up the  collaboration between Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston from the shelves. The Book of the Dead is the seventh title in the authors’  series featuring FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, who is a modern day Sherlock Holmes—skilled at detection, athletic, coldly intelligent, contemptuous of dim-witted police agents, a master of Eastern arts, and seemingly indestructible.

Pendergast, like Holmes, has a brother, Diogenes, but theirs is not a pleasant relationship. In this case Diogenes’s main goal is to destroy his brother and everything that he values. Even without having read the earlier books, I was immediately drawn into this story, and although in retrospect some of the events seem unlikely, Preston and Child have mastered the art of making the reader suspend disbelief. The Book of the Dead is fast-paced, moving quickly from Pendergast’s maximum security prison cell, where he is being held after being set up by his brother, to the Museum of Natural History in New York, where an old display of Egyptian artifacts is being revived, with tragic consequences. Preston and Child bring in interesting characters from several of their other collaborations, including a crack team to spring Pendergast from his cell in time for a confrontation with his past and with his brother. The cliffhanger ending assures readers that there is more to come.

Readers who enjoy a fast-paced thriller with lots of action and some elements of the supernatural will find a lot to enjoy here. It is a good summertime read.

Check the WRL catalog for The Book of the Dead

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Night of Thunder, by Stephen Hunter

I suppose you could say that Stephen Hunter meant his series characters’ name to be ironic.  Father Earl and son Bob Lee Swagger are anything but bluster and braggadocio, and would never break their calm and competent air to show off for anyone.  To others, their friendships are indispensable; their enmity is implacable.  It takes a lot to become their friends, and even more to become their enemies, but either way the relationship is for life.

Bob served three tours in Vietnam, a sniper so skilled that he was given the nickname “Bob the Nailer” for his success.  His official record shows 87 combat kills, but Bob Lee knows the true number—391.  The number and the faces of his targets are engraved in his memory, and despite knowing his job was his duty, Bob suffered after the war with that burden.  An alcoholic, Bob hid himself on his rural Arkansas land and tried to live as a hermit.  Despite his best intentions, though, his expertise with the psychology of the sniper keeps bringing him into the world and into violent confrontations.  Fortunately for him, he reconnects with the widow of an old friend, and with her support and the love of their daughter Nikki, Bob stays  sober and dedicates himself to his Western ranch.

When Nikki grows up, she becomes a reporter.  While working on a story, someone drives her off a mountain road and puts her into a coma.  Seeing professionalism in the attempt, Bob makes it his mission to find the driver and take his revenge.  But there was a reason Nikki was targeted, and Bob uncovers what turns out to be the biggest, scariest, and most plausible heist I’ve read in fiction.  Plus, in this case the bad guys are the Grumley family, who we first met in Hot Springs, Hunter’s first novel about Earl Swagger.  A clan that breeds and trains criminals, the Grumleys are about the last people anyone would want to meet.  By contrast, Bob goes after them whole-heartedly.  As in all these stories, there is a high body count.

Hunter has a great ear for the Ozark style of speaking and thinking, and is able to catch the sights and sounds of rural areas.  He also relies extensively on numbers—gun models, calibers, loads, ballistics—which are a window into the world of serious shooters, but don’t bog down the action.  His tactical sense in the action scenes allows the reader to visualize the lay of the ground, the obstacles, and the movements of each character so there’s no getting confused by who’s doing what where.  But the real strength of the book lies in Bob Lee Swagger, a man who wants to be simple, who wants to leave his singular gift behind, and who is denied that wish.

Check the WRL catalog for Night of Thunder

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Volk’s Game, by Brent Ghelfi

Can’t get enough of Lee Child?  How about taking a chance on his Russian counterpart, Alexei Volkovoy?  Now, Volk, as he’s known to all, hasn’t appeared in as many titles as Jack Reacher (c’mon Brent, we’re waiting!), but his stories are as fast-forward and brutal as any thriller series going.

Who is Volk?  For starters, he’s a veteran of the Chechen wars, where he left a leg and whatever was left of his conscience.  He’s a drug dealer, an online pornographer who uses his seedy business to steal the identities of his Western customers, and a murderer.  He’s a master thief, capable of planning and carrying out a daring operation to steal one of Russia’s greatest treasures on behalf of a top-level criminal.  All that makes him a major player in the underworld that emerged in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union.  But there’s another side to him, deeply hidden and known to a select few, a side that offers Volk a measure of surprising redemption.

Volk’s world is populated by people like him—at least like his public persona.  They are men and women who do not hesitate to use money, sex, and violence to get their way.  There is a fierce undercurrent of rivalry, but it seems that their common target is the mass of Russians and foreign visitors who ask for or provide their services.  And God help anyone who gets in their way, because this environment is wilder than the Wild West, with the sheriff in on the action.  As Bob Dylan said, “The cops don’t need you, and man, they expect the same.” To survive in an atmosphere like this, you need people on your side, and Volk has his lover Valya watching him at all times.  Like Volk, Valya is a survivor of Chechnya and an astoundingly capable killer whose only interest is Volk’s safety.  The two are a seamless team, so their interactions on and off the streets move like a ballet.

Readers of Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko series are familiar with the corruption he depicts in post-Soviet Russia, but from the perspective of a world-weary cop who tries to protect a small circle of friends.  Although Volk is at the other end of the spectrum from Renko, he has some of the same goals.  Russia may be for sale to the highest bidder, but there are some lines even the most hardened criminal won’t cross.   Volk knows precisely where his are.

Check the WRL catalog for Volk’s Game

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In the Name of Honor and Exile, by Richard North Patterson

Alan Bernstein writes about Richard North Patterson’s work:

Richard North Patterson, besides being one of our best and most intelligent novelists, is arguably the current master of the suspense novel as an exploration and dissection of contemporary political, geopolitical, moral, and ethical issues.

Originally a trial lawyer, he uses his deep knowledge of the law, the legal process, and criminal procedure to place his protagonists in situations that enable him to deal with his main concern – the moral, legal, and ethical issues that confront them.

At its core, Exile, published in 2007, is the story of a Jewish-American lawyer, David Wolfe, who is asked by Hana Arif, a Palestinian woman with whom he had a secret affair 13 years earlier when they were law school classmates, to defend her when she is implicated in the assassination of the visiting Israeli prime minister in San Francisco.

In the hands of a lesser author, the book would just have been a combination police procedural/courtroom drama.  In Patterson’s hands, however, the book is enriched immeasurably by a lengthy exploration of the ethical, moral, political, safety, and personal issues raised by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, especially Israel’s legitimate safety concerns versus the Palestinian actions in their quest for nationhood, and the geopolitical interests of Syria and Iraq allied to extremists of all stripes and religions.

By enlarging the context of the basic David Wolfe/Hana Arif story to include more than just the personal, Patterson engages the reader to ponder the larger issues, as well as the smaller, more domestic ones.

Patterson’s newest book In the Name of Honor (2010) is a study of the corrosive effects of war on the warriors that fight them and the families they leave behind.  As in Exile, the dramatic centerpiece is a trial, but in this case a court martial instead of a regular civilian trial.

Each book is heavily and intelligently researched, exceedingly well crafted, and compulsively readable.

Check the WRL catalog for Exile

Check the WRL catalog for In the Name of Honor

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A Perfect Getaway

Elisabeth Murray of Circulation Services starts this week with a movie review:

Eleven miles.  That is the distance from the start of the Kalalau Trail on the island of Kauai until its terminus at a beach paradise.  The trail is narrow and at times nothing separates you from a 200-foot plunge into the Pacific Ocean.

Eleven miles in which, if you injure yourself, you hope and pray that your fellow hikers can make it out in time to get help.

Forget about reaching for your cell-phone.  There is no reception.  These are eleven miles in which you are more likely to see a mountain goat than a person.  This is untamed wilderness at its wildest.

But not everyone is deterred by these dangers.  The adventurous (and naive) flock to this hike, considered one of the most difficult in the world.

Cliff (played by Steve Zahn) and Cydney (played by Milla Jovovich)  have decided to celebrate their honeymoon by hiking this remote trail.  They are eager to begin their new life together as they experience the untamed beauty of Hawaii.

However, this couple becomes fearful, not of the natural dangers, but of the two other couples they meet during their arduous hike.  They have learned of a vicious murder on the island of Oahu; a young couple also celebrating their honeymoon has been murdered and the police believe the fugitives have fled to Kauai to hide.  Could the murderers be on the trail with them?

Eleven miles of paradise.  Eleven miles of seclusion.  It really is the perfect place for a murderer to hide.  It really is the perfect place for another murder to be committed.

A Perfect Getaway is written and directed by David Twohy. And in case you are wondering after you read this, yes, my husband and I hiked this trail while we were living in Hawaii.  It was a beautiful, but uneventful, trip.  Thank goodness!

 

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Slow Horses, by Mick Herron

Foul-ups—every organization has them.  The guy who accidentally faxed a sensitive document to the wrong number.  The woman who didn’t back up the computer system and lost years’ worth of data.  The person who hit “Reply All” with a smart-aleck comment.  Some organizations can even get rid of them, but others have less flexibility.  For instance, MI5, Britain’s analogue to the FBI and Homeland Security, can’t afford to turn disgruntled ex-employees loose.  After all, MI5 creates, investigates, records, and remembers national secrets.  What do you do when you have personnel privy to those secrets but who can’t be trusted with any more?

You send them to Slough House, where they become known to all and sundry as the Slow Horses.  They’ll troll through outdated phone transcripts, look at the attendance records of foreign students, collate membership lists, and write reports that no one will ever read.  Maybe one day they’ll quit and disappear quietly to drink their pensions away.  Problem solved.

Except when one of the Slow Horses, in this case River Cartwright, knows he’s been sent to Slough House by accident and wants to find his way back to the fast-track career he thinks he deserves.  He begins his own (clumsy) intrigue, defying his oppressive boss and lying to his fellow Slow Horses.

At the same time, the world is shocked when a young man is snatched from a British street.  A video feed of the teenager is broadcast over the Internet, with the kidnappers promising to behead him in 48 hours.  Who is the boy?  Who are the kidnappers and what do they want?  Those questions get closer and closer to Slough House, until River and the rest of the Slow Horses are in the spotlight—not exactly the place MI5 thinks they’ll shine.

Herron does a great job of creating characters and capturing the setting.  The Slow Horses are each clearly delineated—most knowing their sins, all craving redemption and bitterly hiding the knowledge that their professional lives are over.  Herron’s device of using an omniscient observer to lay out the Slow Horses’ personalities by describing their offices is all the more intriguing for a well-placed echo later in the book.  One of the best characters is Jackson Lamb, the crude slob who runs Slough House and who takes sadistic delight in tormenting his charges.  Combine his comically vile and cynical supervision with the stultifying atmosphere at Slough House, and it becomes a wonder that any of the Slow Horses show up for work at all.

At the same time, there is an actual person in danger, and here Herron’s dramatic skills really come into play.  He captures the gripping fear of the kidnapping victim, who knows the what but not the why.  As his captivity lengthens, he puts himself through an intense self-examination that brings out strengths that make him, in many ways, the central character in the story.  His hope is not sufficient though, and the way he faces his final danger leaves the reader admiring his courage.

The story itself is perfectly paced—starting off slow and gathering momentum as the threads begin to come together and the deadline for a live Internet execution draws closer.  Herron adroitly shifts focus from character to character, advancing the story and filling in essential details from different points of view.  This is more suspenseful than thrilling, so the cumulative effect makes the final result more memorable than any flash-bang adventure story could.

Slow Horses is the closest I’ve come to finding a successor worthy of John Le Carré’s timely, intriguing, and character-driven spy stories.  I’m looking forward to reading more of Mick Herron’s books, and to suggesting them to other readers.

Check the WRL catalog for Slow Horses.

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